


Out With the Tide

by unrivaled_tapestry



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Murder, Blood and Violence, Drowning, Hallucinations, Kidnapping, M/M, Mermaids, Near Death Experiences, Not Really Character Death, Recruit Lorenz, Recruit Lysithea, Revenge, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:27:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25837243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrivaled_tapestry/pseuds/unrivaled_tapestry
Summary: On a return trip to seaside Aegir in 1185, Ferdinand disappears. Uncovering the details of his watery death leads Hubert on a dark, vengeful path in the middle of Edelgard's war.But when the men who hurt Ferdinand are dead, it's time to join the assault on Derdriu.If Hubert can only get this music out of his ears.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 16
Kudos: 119
Collections: Ferdibert Week 2020





	Out With the Tide

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there!
> 
> You know, I felt like I was going to end up writing a merfic at some point, but I wasn't sure what shape that was going to take. Turns out, this is it! I saw that "mermaid au" was a prompt for Ferdibert week, and I absolutely needed to make this happen. It was supposed to be 3k and I overshot that by about 100%, but I also don't know what I expected.
> 
> Thanks to Nuanta for betas <3
> 
> Warnings for:  
> \- Some fairly intense grieving Hubert and some graphic violence  
> \- Hubert also being mean to people who don't. Deserve it.  
> \- Nightmares (complete with Hubert having visions of a drowned Ferdinand)  
> \- At least two incidents of implied drowning and on-screen near drowning.  
> \- Referenced kidnapping and attempted murder  
> \- Character believed dead  
> \- Auditory hallucinations
> 
> This was written for Ferdibert Week 2020 Day 1, for the prompt: Mermaid AU. This isn't fully an AU, so much as it is canon divergent, but the scaly spirit is there!

It was rare for both Hubert and Ferdinand to be absent from Garreg Mach, and even rarer for them to have a moment to themselves in the middle of the war. “ _Come now_ ,” Ferdinand had said, “ _The war will wait a day. We should go for a ride before we leave._ ” And Hubert could hardly have refused him so early in their courtship.

So they’d saddled hacks at an inn just outside Enbarr and taken an old trail that wound along the coast. They started out on a road bordered by forgotten and tightly planted poplars. Then as they reached the cliffs and signs of human activity decreased, oleander and olive coated the floor and jagged, open-armed Aegir pines obscured their glimpses of the blue sea. Hubert rode behind Ferdinand, and the bright spots of sun through the trees flashed across Ferdinand’s hair like embers and waves of reddish gold fire, made brighter by a mottling of moving shade.

Hubert had never taken much interest in the arts, though he appreciated them. It seemed unnecessary for him to dedicate time and energy to such an undertaking when he doubted he would live long enough to make use of it. Since beginning his arrangement with Ferdinand, however, he wished he had the skill to commit the image he saw to canvas, or the mind to scribble appropriate lyrics for his high voice to rattle out.

When the Immaculate One and Those That Slithered were no more, perhaps he would take up watercolor.

Eventually the trail led them to a bald stretch of hillside where they were able to loosely tie the horses to a carob tree. Ferdinand set them up with their feedbags, and Hubert never thought he would find the sound of horses chewing oats comforting, but he did enjoy the gentle “those look like fine oats! Thank you for bringing us here, noble beast” coos from Ferdinand. Hubert laid out a blanket and spread out a loaf of fresh bread, a small ceramic dish holding olive oil laced with garlic and rosemary, and an assortment of preserved meats and cheeses.

And of course, sealed ceramic containers of tea and coffee, each heated with a sigil stone at the base.

When Ferdinand finally sat next to Hubert, they ate in companionable silence, the vast blue sea stretching out into the horizon. They were close enough to hear the roar from the sea, the sound of waves lapping against the shoreline in all directions.

“You know you could ride all the way to Aegir on this road,” Ferdinand said. “It is not very well travelled, but it would be a beautiful trip.”

“I’m sure Her Majesty would prefer you return to Garreg Mach sooner than that.” Hubert took a bite of sour cheese and salty meat. _He_ would prefer Ferdinand return sooner than that. Oh what a difference a few years could make. “I should go with you.”

Ferdinand shook his head. “Nonsense. Aegir is my home. And largely supports Edelgard and the war effort. I have nothing to fear there.”

Hubert was glad Ferdinand’s attention was fixed on the sea, rather than on him, because he wasn’t sure if the little pained pinprick in his chest reached his face. He had no reason to be hurt, of course—Ferdinand wasn’t under any obligation to see home as fluid and unnecessary. “Just...do be careful. I would hate to need to come rescue you.”

Ferdinand leaned closer, a truly wicked little smile getting ready to press into Hubert’s lips. “I do not know. I think I would like to be rescued by you very much.”

Hubert closed the distance first, and he tasted the faintest trace of salt from their ride, the press of Ferdinand’s body into his own. He’d once thought of Ferdinand’s smile as foolhardy, now he loved nothing more than to _feel_ it between them, to soak up the rich vibration of Ferdinand’s laughter. He moved closer then, until his nose pressed against the base of Ferdinand’s jaw and his lips traced the sinews of his throat, going lower. Ferdinand’s laughter turned into a hum, and he shifted. Before Hubert knew what was happening, he was on his back, under a vast expanse of sky with reddish hair falling around him and the sea still in his ears.

❖

The war room in Garreg Mach was quiet, save for the sound of shivering and whimpering from the man bound and kneeling on the hard stone floor. His face was red from crying and wet from sweat or tears, and at Hubert’s order his people had only given the stranger a cursory cleansing and a fresh set of clothes. Their prisoner would be meeting the Emperor, after all.

Everyone of import had already had the news delivered to them earlier that day, and they all stood and watched the shivering man with everything from stony silence to bleary, red-eyed anger. With so many crests directed towards him, the prisoner had to think himself subject to the judgement of a half-dozen saints—at least Hubert would have, were his own mind so small and his future so limited.

Of course, the knife in his hand only needed the permission of one.

Hubert leaned against the end of the large table, the rest of the Black Eagle Strike Force forming a tight semi-circle to the side, each fixated entirely on the prisoner. He hoped none of them pitied the man too much.

The edge of a blade whispered against the whetstone in Hubert’s other palm, the sound sluicing violently through the walls and high ceiling. The prisoner shuddered.

“Do you know where you are?” Hubert started, voice low, almost conversational.

The prisoner nodded. “I do.”

Hubert motioned to Edelgard, who stood in the middle of the assembly. “Do you know who that is?”

The prisoner nodded, even as his face broke apart into another ugly sob. “Goddess...no.”

“You are almost correct. That is your Emperor. These—” he made it clear he referenced the Eagles “—are her closest generals and friends.” He felt the chill in his voice and scraped the whetstone again. “I want you to tell them what you told me this morning.”

There was a shake of an ill-kept head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Your Majesty—”

Scrape. “I did not say you could address her directly.”

He sucked in a wet, ugly breath. “Before the war...I was a part of a mercenary band. In Aegir. The old Duke hired us. For protection. Months’ worth.” For the first time, his mouth went into a tight, angry line. “The bastard didn’t pay us. Not one coin. We talked about finding him, ransoming him, but he was already under house arrest by then. Right here in his cushy home in the capital.”

Hubert nodded. “Yes, we all hate the Duke, but what happened next?”

The tears came back. “We heard the Duke’s son was coming back to Aegir. We were up late drinking, talking about roughing him up, taking what he had. Sending a message. Next thing we knew we were taking our ship up the coast.” He sniffed. “Couldn’t believe our luck, catching him at an inn like that. We gathered him up easily enough, before casting out to sea. It was a full moon but the patrol boats didn’t see us.” A headshake, and another violent shudder. “He didn’t have much but we were going to ransom him. His bastard father couldn’t pay, but one of the Emperor’s generals had to be worth something.”

“You would have been correct,” Hubert said, every nerve of him counting final seconds. “What did you do instead?”

“Our captain, he started getting scared.” The prisoner’s voice was starting to get moist and bubbling again, and Hubert fought the urge to slap him mid-word. His red, bloody eyes found Edelgard, looked directly at her, and Hubert nearly struck him once more. “If Emperor Edelgard challenged the Archbishop, what would she do to us if we were caught?” His throat bobbed under a greasy kerchief. “But the Aegir boy, he’d already seen our faces.”

“I can’t stay here any longer.” Linhardt’s voice rang with a kind of desperate flatness through the room, he broke from the semi-circle, frantically disappearing from Caspar’s side and squeezing his way out behind Petra and Lorenz. He had one hand up around his mouth and the other wrapping itself tightly around his ribs.

As he passed her, Lysithea reached for his retreating shoulder and Edelgard raised a hand in a signal to leave him be, her message clear. Bernadetta had already been excused from this testimony; anyone else who didn’t want to stay to hear the end was also free to leave. After a moment, and one final hateful look at the prisoner, Caspar followed—face downcast in shameful apology.

Hubert pressed the tip of his dagger into one of his gloved fingers and pointed it towards the prisoner. “You may continue.” His own breath was starting to feel sharp. “Tell everyone here what you did to Ferdinand von Aegir.”

“We wound some rocks up with fishing nets. Next we tied up his hands, and I remember he looked confused, because he was already wrapped up pretty good.” He looked haunted, faraway, no longer looking at any one member of his audience. “I think he figured out what was happening when we tied the weight to his wrists. He fought, but he’d been fighting all night. And there were six of us.”

“Don’t be shy now,” Hubert said.

He paused, swallowed through a mouth open and wretched. “We set out a plank, then made him walk it.”

The towering silence in the room broke with sharp gasps and the bark of smothered sobs.

“I’m sorry. I’m so _sorry_.” He made another guttural noise from behind his nose. Hubert fought something ruthless and wild in him—monstrous, were he a crest-born beast he could have bitten the man’s head off, could have hunted them all down in a hundred easy strides and ripped them to pulver and viscera. “I knew we’d made a mistake the second he hit the water, but it was too late. I’ll never forget the way his hair swirled as he sank. Or the air coming back up. Goddess forgive us the—”

“That’s enough,” Lorenz snapped, hands folded tightly behind his back.

“I don’t think it is.” Hubert knew he was all but growling away the lash of rage he felt. He could have bitten off Lorenz’s head too, right then.

“We know how Ferdinand died. We need not shame his memory with the details.” Lorenz turned to face Edelgard and Byleth. “I beg you both to end this miserly display.”

“No,” Petra said firmly. “I want to be hearing _all_ of it from this man.”

“He could be lying.” Dorothea grasped shakily for the last rope they all desperately wanted to be there.

“He can’t.” Lysithea cut in. “See those sigils on his skin?”

Dorothea squeezed her eyes shut, teeth jutting out to bite at her lower lip.

“There’s more,” Hubert countered, reaching for a blood-smeared scroll in his pocket, which he produced and handed to Edelgard. “We have the names of his five accomplices. I’ll need five more warrants.”

Edelgard took the parchment and snapped it open, reading over it quickly and with practical indifference before handing it to Byleth, who stood at her side and took a moment longer before returning it. Edelgard said, “Consider them already signed.”

Hubert didn’t bother to glance around the room. “What say the jury?”

After a quick glance between them, Edelgard and Byleth both solemnly but curtly nodded. Lysithea merely looked away, and Lorenz produced the carved silver box he kept on his person.

Without ceremony, Hubert approached the prisoner. He stood so Edelgard would have the clearest view, and fisting one hand in greasy hair, the other dropped the blade to a damp throat and—

“He died good.”

Hubert’s hand froze in place. Every eye turned to the prisoner, to the tiny voice he spoke with.

“He was brave, I mean.” A little louder this time. “When he realized there was no fighting. Held his chin high.” Another swallow against the dagger. “He was crying.” Hubert’s hand shook around the fistful of hair. “We still had to prod him. And his legs trembled, but when he sensed it was time he took the last step on his own—”

Hubert dragged his dagger upwards so violently it sent an arc of blood across the rug on the floor, across the stone pillars, even onto the table. Under his hand, the man gagged and dark arterial blood drained out onto his prison rags in a sputtering, bubbling fountain. Hubert’s dagger had cut clean through his larynx, too, and the scream gargled as blood slipped down through his useless vocal cords and into his lungs, all while he thrashed violently in Hubert’s other hand.

After a short time, he was still, and Hubert let the body drop to the floor. Absently, he ran a hand through his bangs, and couldn’t be bothered to care when he realized he’d left a wet smear on his forehead.

Everyone in the room was either looking or not looking at the body. Edelgard’s face was downcast and Byleth had summoned concern to her placid features. Petra reached out to comfort Dorothea, who looked as wretched as Hubert had ever seen her. Lysithea had a hand on Edelgard’s back, and Lorenz dipped a thumb into his silver snuff box and sharply inhaled a dose of tobacco powder through his nose.

Lorenz gave an artificial cough as the dust settled. “Come, let us quit this room. I’d rather not be smelling copper for the rest of the day.”

Hubert fell back to the table, wiped the blood from his knife with a few deft strokes. He watched them all go, filing out one at a time, none looking at him. None except Edelgard, who, as she encouraged Lysithea to go on with the others, approached him. It was he, then, who did not look at her.

Their relationship had never been one for tactile comforts, save a few nights in Edelgard’s youth when he’d held her while she fell asleep, promising to keep the bad dreams away, as if he had the power to do that. He was glad she did not attempt to break that now—instead grabbing a seat at the table and folding her gloved hands in front of her. The knife in his hand felt heavy, and her head sagged under the weight of her coronet.

❖

Hubert typically prided himself on his efficiency—he expertly arranged accidents and had been behind locked room assassinations that would have stumped even the best investigators. His targets rarely knew he was even there, and it was better that way—it was certainly safer for him, though that was little consequence. Mostly, it protected Edelgard.

The men who killed Ferdinand saw his face. They died choking on garrotes and miasma, they drowned or had their blood drained, and he made sure that every one of them knew why. Even taking his time, Hubert made quick work of his list. By the time the last two had the idea to flee Fodlan, it was already too late. He had their scent, and the furthest one had merely arranged transport to Sreng for the following day.

Ferdinand’s armor, coat, and horse had all been rapidly sold to cover the meager silvers his murderers stole from him. Hubert was able to recover them with little trouble. The horse was sent back to Garreg Mach, and he oiled the armor and folded the coat before ensuring their transport to Enbarr.

It was a long, bloody month, and he returned to Edelgard’s side in time to join the assault on Derdriu.

He sat and sipped coffee in her command tent. It was cold, weak, and bitter. Byleth paid him no mind, instead opting to offer Edelgard more. In a death-blow to Hubert’s mood, Lorenz was there, too, sipping from his own cup and daintily supporting it with the saucer. Of all of them, it was Lorenz that watched Hubert. He tried to be subtle about it—glancing out of the corner of his eye when he thought Hubert wasn’t looking, over the rim of his blasted tea cup.

“Can I help you with something?” Hubert asked, trying to squeeze out the chords ringing in his ears.

There was a dense pause as Lorenz flourished up towards his cravat. “You have something…”

“If you were wondering, it is blood.” Hubert didn’t need to see the white of his collar to know what Lorenz was talking about.

Lorenz made a sound in the high part of his nose. “Good thing we are going into battle.”

“That is what I called you all here to discuss,” Edelgard announced, cutting in. “As you know, tomorrow we march on Derdriu.”

Hubert kept an eye on Lorenz this time, as Edelgard spoke. He saw that noble expression shift, his eyes cast downwards for just a second. Granted, Hubert would have been more concerned had he not reacted at all.

“It’s well defended,” Byleth said, one hand on the map in front of them. She frowned, finger trailing over an open expanse of ocean between the beach and the massive, man-made structure that connected Derdriu to the mainland. “If we had some boats, we could go around the back.”

Edelgard shook her head. “There’s no direct route by sea. If the ships left from Nuvelle, they’d take months to get here, if they could get by the coast of Faerghus undetected, much less around Sreng.”

“What about building ships on this side?”

Hubert nearly laughed—Byleth Eisner was indeed a brilliant strategist, but sometimes lacked common knowledge on the economics of time and money that went into waging a war. “If I may, Professor—the construction of a single vessel suitable for this assault would take upwards of two years, assuming there are no delays. I’m afraid we must take the direct route.”

“Why would Claude not simply close off the city?”

Lorenz loudly placed his teacup back on its saucer. “If he did, he would starve Derdriu. Holding a throne is hardly worth that.” He placed his hands on the table and primly leaned forwards. “I wanted to discuss Claude.” He met Edelgard’s eyes. “If he leaves us the opportunity, I believe it would be prescient to leave him alive.”

Hubert couldn’t contain the derisive sound that matched his mood. “Claude von Riegan is too dangerous to leave alive.”

“I’ve had years to consider this.” Lorenz very much did not speak to Hubert. “And I have reason to believe that Claude is a member of the Almyran royal family.”

“ _This_ again?” Hubert impatiently drummed on the table. “You’ve no proof.”

“Lorenz, he may not give us the chance,” Edelgard suggested, and Hubert felt...something, at how thoughtful her voice was, rubbed a hand over his forehead as his ears rang with a sharp note. Damn shoreline. Damned sea.

“I know, Your Majesty,” Lorenz offered. He swiveled Hubert. “Perhaps if our spymaster had spent the last month finding evidence instead of chasing ghosts, there would be some hint of intelligence for us to discuss. Thus, we’re left with conjecture.”

A high ringing, shrill but musical, pierced Hubert’s ear. “If we do kill von Riegan, I _promise_ we’ll let you read another poem on the beach.”

“ _Hubert_.” Like a sharp strike, Edelgard used the voice she rarely used with him. The one of command, when his name from her lips became the order. He stopped, tried not to cower like a schoolboy even as he felt the ruler on his knuckles. The ringing in his ears ceased, abruptly, the song ended, and he was left with Edelgard’s anger, Byleth’s appraising worry, and Lorenz looking as though Hubert had slapped him across the face. Before he could respond, Edelgard had risen from her seat, her chair scraping on the ground as she did so. “Outside. _Now_.”

He’d say she’d rarely treated him like a servant, but she’d have never spoken to a servant the way she spoke to him now.

He followed her, decidedly not looking at the others. As he left, he heard Byleth softly speaking to Lorenz, as if that would be enough to keep a man from treason.

When he stepped out into the camp, he was greeted by the sound of the sea. They were close enough to the sandy beaches of Derdriu’s coast that, even at night, unable to see the distant ocean well, Hubert could still feel it there, heard it as surely as he could make out the endless expanse of overcast clouds, bringing wind that blew sand into their tents and rustled the sparse, hardy shore grasses. He spied a dainty, long-legged bird scuttering in between driftwood skeletons.

Edelgard walked him far from her command tent, and he smelled the cool salt and algae on the breeze as it gently picked up her cape and tossed it.

They came to a small rise overlooking the beach. Hubert could make out foamy white flashes as waves gently battered the shore. He paused with her, watched her close her eyes into the night and take a deep breath.

“You have an opinion,” she said, “I would invite you to share it with me.”

Hubert wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting—her wrath, perhaps. “I believe it is a mistake to include Gloucester in the attack on Derdriu.” He folded his arms, grateful for how the wind cooled his brow. “I suspect with Ferdinand gone that his loyalty lies with the Professor, not you. He may even consider you and I responsible. Either he plans to betray us tomorrow, or he’s desperate to prove his worth. In either case, his advice should not be trusted. ”

“So he is both a traitor and a desperate incompetant?” Edelgard made a thoughtful noise. “Please, Hubert, you must admit that sounds familiar.”

Anger crept through him, starting from the little smoldering ember he’d carefully nursed for months. “Familiar, because he sees an opportunity.”

“You think he’s trying to replace Ferdinand?"

A strong wave lashed the sand, and Hubert sucked in a breath, as a cello’s low note drifted up from the shore to find him once more. He blinked, because sometimes the music went away if he blinked, or if he drove a pin into his thumb, but it kept returning.

It started as a quiet noise near the coast of Aegir, while he’d been on his hunt, little more than a whisper in his ear. Easy enough to dismiss as the result of poor sleep and lingering grief. Now, on the ocean near Derdriu, it had turned into the constant ghost of a whole quartet—some notes low and vibrating, others high, clear whistles. Bass, cello, viola, violin, all played through his mind loudly, but discordantly, lacking the structure of music but holding true to the force of it.

Hubert didn’t have time to lose his mind.

“I don’t know if that is his intention,” Hubert admitted, “but I know that he could not accomplish it.”

“I see.” Her mouth firmed. "You know he and Ferdinand were good friends?"

"Ferdinand considered him a friend, yes."

Edelgard kept her eyes to the horizon, her hair bright against the charcoal clouds over her head. “Did you know he has taken tea with me three times a week this last month?”

Hubert’s jaw ached. “I did not.”

“You wouldn’t. You’ve been _gone_.” There wasn’t a hint of shame in her tone, though he felt a pang of it regardless. “Lorenz and I often don’t see eye to eye, but there’s no surprise there. We’ve discussed at length whether the nobility can be salvaged, of course, but we’ve also debated the drawbacks of tariffs for the common folk and shared our worry at how unprepared we are should a plague spread through our recently taken territories. If he thought I was going to _disappear_ him for not being a sycophant, I’m pretty sure he would have fled after the argument we got into about reforming the church. We also went for a ride the other day. Don’t worry—Byleth was there. But he knew a lovely spot, a place just north of Ailell, with pools warmed by the surrounding rocks. Can you imagine?” A strong gust slapped her cloak onto her dress. “It’s been...nice. A welcome distraction.”

Hubert listened without speaking—he could hardly say he listened in silence, because of the strings in his ears, but he waited for her to finish, each word a condemnation of his behavior.

“He’s not trying to replace Ferdinand. But I need someone with his knowledge and perspective.” She took a shaking breath. “I need people who will tell me when they think I’m wrong. I can’t lose that, too. Do you understand?”

Hubert pressed his right hand over his heart and gave her a quick bow. “My...apologies if I have misread the situation.”

“It is forgiven.” She gave one of the short, bitter laughs that they shared. “I should make you apologize to him.”

Hubert opened his mouth to respond, but on a rich strum of a string, he looked out to sea, because he was sure he could hear the direction of it that time—

“Hubert?”

He jolted back to her. She stared at him.

“Your Majesty?”

“Have you been sleeping?”

“Surely as well as you have.”

There was a pause, more sand blew between them.

“I’m...here for you.” Spoken with the lilting pattern of someone who did not allow others to be there for her, who was not used to using them but felt she should. It was quiet, almost lost in the wind.

“Unacceptable, it is I that am here for you.” He swallowed, fighting the tightness in his throat. “It is my sole desire to focus on the attack on Derdriu, and afterwards, the Kingdom.”

He heard her let out a frustrated noise. She told him the attack would begin at dawn before making her way back to the command tent, leaving Hubert alone with the dunes and the waves as his boots gently sank into the shifting ground.

After she left, the music turned into a high song, the lowest note of a violin, almost the timber of a man’s voice.

Hubert took a step towards the waves—not to go into them, just to go closer. Until he could find either words or rhythm.

He sighed, tightly folded his hands behind him, and made for his tent. Even if sleep wouldn’t find him, there was plenty more he could do to prepare for the upcoming battle. After their quick and decisive victory, their war would turn inland once more, and the song in his ears would doubtlessly fade.

He was sick of the sea.

❖

Hubert heard footsteps in his tent. Instinctively, even before his conscious mind came to life, he logged them as steady, ambling, slightly sloppy, and close.

He was a light sleeper, and it didn’t take much sound to move him to wakefulness. An owl hooting. A guard patrolling with an ill-fitting greave. The chitter of vermin. All were enough to wake him and leave him to make the most of his insomnia. Only Ferdinand had ever been able to find him at his writing desk and coax him gently back to the warmth of bed. Whatever else he’d heard faded into the background, replaced by the sound of Ferdinand’s steady breaths or the valves of his heart working not far under Hubert’s ear. Hubert teased that Feridnand had become too accustomed to clinging to him. He now knew the truth.

Unannounced footsteps approaching him could only mean one thing, and Hubert reached for the knife under his pillow. He scanned the darkness as he grasped the hilt. He made out the shape of his cot, the shadowy shapes of his sparse furniture by the waxing moon through the canvas, and blinked at the squish on the ground after every step, the methodical squeal on gravel as the trespasser grew closer. The visitor was hardly being stealthy, and sounded as though they were walking in boots that had been soaked through.

Confused, Hubert rose to a seated position.

Ferdinand looked back at him from the foot of the cot.

Even by the standards of a nightmare, his skin was a pale and sickly gray, his red hair draped damply across his dripping shirt. He had none of the accessories one would expect from a ghost lost at sea—there were no crabs crawling from his vacant eye sockets, no kelp artfully wrapped around his throat and bruised wrists. Instead, the smell of brine and fresh fish wafted over Hubert. Ferdinand’s eyes were milky and unfocused.

Ferdinand opened his lips to speak and a lungful of water poured out to slap onto the ground.

Hubert woke up with miasma flowing from his hands. It clung to the sheets before dropping off the side to spread across the ground.

❖

The Almyran warships appeared and swiftly set up a blockade in the harbor. Wyverns took off from the decks and began decimating Imperial footsoldiers sent to hold the docks, their membranous wings pink shadows under the sun just as their moss-green scales swallowed the sun.

Hubert and Edelgard watched in horror as Bernadetta’s archer’s struggled to get into position to provide cover fire. A horse came up beside them, hooves staggering to a stop, stomping at the presence of so many wyverns.

“Is _that_ proof enough for you?” Lorenz yelled over the din of battle.

Hubert had no reply. It all made sense now, and—

—he heard bells, and there was no telling if they were alarms from Derdriu or more figments of his imagination.

Byleth’s hand fell to Hubert’s shoulder. “Look. They’ve done us a favor.”

Hubert blinked, and saw that she was right. The ships were interlocked and soldiers moved between them on sturdy gangplanks. On the far side, Claude was positioned to command both the Alliance and Almyran forces. By necessity, the blockade created a bridge right to him. They could bypass the waterfront entirely.

Byleth and Edelgard led the charge down the beach, striking down footsoldiers while Lorenz jousted against three other cavalrymen and bested each of them. Petra and Bernadetta fired a few warning shots—they missed, at the distance they were shooting from, but it made the wyvern riders think twice about approaching regardless.

The mages—Hubert dealt with the mages. They were no match for him, and he’d forgotten how he thrived in battle, how his purpose was clearing a path for Her Majesty. His heart thundered, and the instrumentals were drowned out by the roaring blood in his ears. Edelgard and Byleth were up the first gangplank and onto the ship before the crew knew what was happening, and Hubert was close behind, his boots thundering on dry wood and his balance steady as the large ship rocked beneath them as a wave of reinforcements came from the next ship in their path..

Behind him, Dorothea unleashed a thoron spell, and it sent a column of energy reeling past his shoulder to strike at a heavy armored unit on the far side of the ship. It did more than that—it left a crater in the side, taking splinters of railing as the dead man fell.

“Quick!” Edelgard yelled, charging ahead to brush men aside with her shield as the Sword of the Creator arced through the air around her, while Hubert stepped into the downed rigging and sent spikes of magic onto unsuspecting heads.

He stood at the edge, unable to contain the laugh in his throat.

Somewhere, through the cacophony of battle though, he heard the sound of metal scraping on wood.

The armored soldier from earlier was pitifully crawling across the deck. One mailed hand reached up and out, pulled the rest of the suit a little further.

Hubert raised a hand laced with magic—better to keep their path clean.

Hubert hesitated. He saw the soldier reaching up for something on the side, something tangled in ropes and hovering precariously in the ruined decking. Hubert frowned. _What_ was the man doing?

The soldier looked back to Hubert, and pushed.

The anchor dropped.

Hubert followed the unspooling ropes, tracked to where it was tangled with the fallen rigging.

Someone called out to him, but he couldn’t hear over the most violent, dark thrum of a cello.

He realized too late that the rope was wrapped around his ankle.

His leg swept out from under him. The world spun and tilted painfully as he saw blue sky in the seconds before a bone deep ache splintered through the bones of his skull. Stars danced in his vision as every one of his limbs betrayed him to being dragged limply across the deck, the music in his ears blissfully replaced by dazed nothingness as the sky blurred by, as his spine violently whipped over the edge of the ship.

Sky was replaced by cold water, seeping into his uniform as it clutched at his throat, covered his lips, and ran up his nose as his logged cape trailed behind him.

Hubert held his breath as he was dragged under.

Even as his senses returned to him, the force of water rushing by him made it hard to grab for his nearest knife, and his shallow last breath was already souring in his chest. Already the light from above was fading, as were the sounds of battle, and his fingers tingled, clumsily numbing him at the edge of the abyss. Blue became slate became navy, and—

He couldn’t hear the song anymore.

The knife dropped from his hand. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t remember what he meant to do with it.

Hubert closed his eyes.

“ _Hubert?_ ”

“ _Hubert_.”

Hubert opened his eyes.

He knew the starburst of red hair around him, even shaded green by the dull, sparkling light from above. The amber eyes he would know anywhere, even with the sclera pitched black. Glittering green scales were laid over the pale skin of a freshly waterlogged corpse, and he wanted to reach out to the sweet worry in that face, because he recognized it, had been dreaming of it when he dared to.

This was...perhaps the strangest dying image his mind could have conjured.

Rough, webbed hands tipped in claws clutched forcefully around his cheeks.

“ _Listen to me. You must stay awake_.” A pause. “ _Trust me, you do not want to die this way_.”

Hubert watched, studied every line of that alien face.

He barely noted it when he sucked in a gulp of smothering water, the last of his air leaving up past his nose in delicate bubbles.

The illusion swore and dove down. Hubert followed the sight of that hair as his vision dimmed in the swirling shadow of a scaled tail. A fine-boned fin fanned out against the silvery light from the surface.

The world went dark.

Hubert’s cheek was pressed against a flat, sun-warmed stone. The surface was almost uncomfortably hot, and he shivered violently on his side, his fingers prickling painfully as air returned to his blood. Under his chest, his heart still thundered, and his gasping breaths fought the weight of his waterlogged clothes, which pinned his weak frame to the earth. A violent headache was already forming—Hubert had not had a truly horrifying headache since his youth, but he felt one coming on now.

A palm was pressed to his back. He heard a sound like someone strumming all four strings of a viola, but softly, concerned. _Let it all out_.

Hubert coughed, and water came up with it.

A violin. _Good. You are doing very good_.

Hubert pushed himself onto his back.

He gazed up into a canopy of red hair between him and the sun. He saw now, under the scales, behind those strange eyes, the familiar face. Changed, different, but _there_. Organic, chitinous panels of rigid scales had grown out over a well-formed chest, and when Hubert’s dull hand found the place he knew best, to the place where the throat met the shoulder, he felt rows of flexing slits that quivered, flared gently under his hand.

“Ferdinand?”

The inhuman face nodded, frantically, eyes going wide. He opened his mouth to reveal sharper, more translucent teeth, and the noise he made sounded like a thick string snapping. _Yes. It’s me_.

“Ferdinand.” Hubert gasped that name out of his sore throat. Then: “What _happened_ to you?”

Ferdinand opened his mouth to reply.

“—Vestra!”

Ferdinand spun his face up, down the beach, rapid and animal like, and Hubert was too sluggish to catch him, to tell him it would be all right, that he should come see the others.

“Vestra—” The shout cut off, sputtered into wordlessness. A lance clattered down onto the rocks.

Hubert was aware of Ferdinand pausing just a breath, taking one fast look as if he wanted to say more but couldn’t stay.

As quickly as he had come, Ferdinand slipped back into the sea.

Hubert sat up just in time to watch his hair vanish, to watch a dorsal fin cut into the water before disappearing entirely.

He was dimly, distantly aware of Lorenz coming up beside him, pressing a hand to his shoulder. Whether that was to see if Hubert was all right, or to stabilize himself as he stared shakily at the water, Hubert had no clue. They sat in silence under the sun, gazing into the now very alien seeming waves.

“That was,” Lorenz started, voice first quivering before finding certainty, “Ferdinand. That was Ferdinand.”

Hubert summoned the strength for a curt nod, to make up for how his mind churned.

“But he’s dead.”

“Evidently not.”

“He’s a _fish_.” The last word was said in the same kind of tone that a gossip might use to discuss a scandalous broadside.

“That seems to be the case.”

Lorenz blinked against the light, bracing himself on the rocky floor. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Hubert said as the first embers of a new fire started somewhere in him, as the waves churned over a secret. “But I’m going to find out.”


End file.
